Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Perfect day

I came accross Chrissie Wellington's report from her record breaking Roth of race a couple of weeks ago. I like the way she put thoughts into words and how she's not afraid of speaking up whatever goes trough her mind.

She goes on about her race and how much pride it is to be a beacon for many other athletes. And at the end she is grateful for having experienced the perfect day in Roth.
If we all have the chance to have a perfect day I would prefer mine to be in the next race in Budapest. I'd love to have a sub 20 swim, a sub 60 ride and a sub 34 run. Independently of how I finish that would be a perfect day of racing. I am putting a great deal of effort for it to happen, but a great deal of luck needs to come my way.

And then I kept thinking... what happens after?, how many other perfect days do we have in our racing life?. Say there's only one perfect day, when will I use it?.
Chrissie Wellington is both very proud of herself and very humble. She doesn't say that on the report, but she does have a talent that not many of us do, and she is very determined. I believe determination does help to get more perfect days. I believe putting one's heart (rate) and soul does help bringing perfect days one's way.

Looking back onto the races I've raced, there is only one race I thought it was perfect. And it wasn't a triathlon, it was a minor swim-run race at the start of the season. The conditions were good and I was midway through prepping my first HIM. 500m swim and 5km run, a short and intense day at the office, and I managed to suprise quite a few. But what I remember the most is that I was in joy the whole time, I didn't know what pace I was running, but I was superhappy.

Truth to be told, I was sore the following day, but no one can take that day off me.

Today we had a swim TT. The official time says I'm 20secs off my pace, but I felt great throughout knowing I have it on me for at least half a minute less. It was busy traffic at times (4 people on a 25m lane) and we all kind of got lazy on the leader's feet. I wish we have some of the sessions that make me go from good to great (long reps of 100's, some more butterfly).

1 comment:

Two things continually amaze me about Chrissie: 1. She ALWAYS looks happy to be competing, 2. She always feels she has room to improve. Soon she'll be finishing first overall, ahead of the boys. Simply awesome.